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Winners
2024
James Finch
James Finch was a professor in the department of mining and materials engineering at McGill University from 1973-2014. Holding a succession of industrial research chairs, he supervised 50 PhDs, authored 400 + articles, and co-authored two books: Column Flotation (1990) and the 8th Edition of Wills’ Mineral Processing Technology (2016). He is a recipient of the Gaudin Award (SME), the Alcan Award, the Falconbridge Innovation Award, the Leo Derikx Synergy Award for Innovation (NSERC), and the IMPC Lifetime Achievement Award. He is a two-time recipient of the CIM Distinguished Lecturer and the CMP Best Presentation Award. A conference in his honour was held in Sudbury in 2009, and he was general chair of the XXVIII IMPC held in Québec City in 2016. He is a CIM Fellow and in 2002 was elected to the Academy of Science of the Royal Society of Canada. He retired in 2014 as the Gerald G. Hatch Emeritus Professor in mining and metallurgical engineering.
Distinguished Lecturer 2024-25
Lecture Abstract
Cells, Banks, and Circuits
Since the 1980s developments in flotation cells have come out of the lab and into the plant. Flotation columns came to dominate cleaning stages and prompted development of the Jameson Cell now experiencing growing acceptance in sulphide plants. Other examples include the Imhoflot™, Reflux™, Staged Flotation Reactor, and Hydrofloat. In the first part of the talk, these cell developments are organized through a first principles approach to flotation kinetics.
After illustrating the performance advantages of cells in series to form banks, part two proposes and examines theories of bank optimization.
Performance is further enhanced by networking banks (stages) into a circuit. A method to judge circuit separation efficiency is introduced in part three which reveals the flexibility of the rougher-scavenger-cleaner network and illustrates an unexpected feature of the increasingly popular rougher-cleaner-cleaner/scavenger arrangement.
2024
Caius Priscu
Dr. Caius Priscu is co-founder and principal geotechnical engineer with Priscu and Associates Consulting Engineers Inc., based in West Vancouver, BC, Canada. He has over 30 years of experience as a contractor, consultant, and dam owner in the field of geotechnical and geo-environmental engineering related to the mining and water resources industries on five continents. His specialty is dam engineering, dam safety, risk management, and governance of both tailings storage facilities and water retaining dams. He has been a tireless volunteer and true supporter of many technical not-for-profit organizations, including the Canadian Dam Association (CDA), The Mining Association of Canada (MAC), the Canadian Institute of Mining, Metallurgy and Exploration (CIM), the Society for Mining, Metallurgy and Exploration (SME), the International Council for Mining and Metals (ICMM) Tailings Working Group, in London, UK, and the Chilean National Committee on Large Dams (ICOLD Chile) in Santiago, Chile among other. He is the recipient of the CDA 2023 Peter Halliday Award for Service, and an Honorary Member of both the Romanian National Committee on Large Dams (ROCOLD), as well at the Technical Sciences Academy of Romania. He holds a PhD in Mining Engineering from McGill University and is a registered Professional Engineer in B.C.
Distinguished Lecturer 2024-25
Lecture Abstracts
Tailings Management Is About Water Management
One common denominator for most TSF failures in the last four decades has been inadequate water management. Whether it was pond location control, excessive seepage, high phreatic surfaces in the dams, poor seasonal planning or monitoring, or uncontrolled groundwater issues that were not considered in design, water has been at the core of many such unfortunate events. This presentation will discuss some of these failures and how water can be identified as the “real culprit” in most cases. It will also discuss some leading practices in water management as they relate to dam safety. The presentation will also take a hard look at (and bust) some myths, that somehow found a place in tailings management practice, and which have no impact in ensuring resilience and robustness of TSFs when managing upset water conditions.
Lessons for Tailings Managers and Engineers from Maritime Industry Failures
In this presentation, a parallel is drawn to some real-life case studies of catastrophic failures from the maritime industry and its own unfortunate events, and what we – in the mining industry - could learn from them. The parallel discusses causation from both a technical and a human performance perspective, noting that commonality with tailings management is strikingly close. Furthermore, the presentation discusses how ill-defined, uninformed decision-making processes and human errors resulted in such tragedies, or impacted the outcomes and consequences of unwanted events the maritime industry has seen in the last couple of decades. The mining industry is still human-centric when it comes to dealing with mother nature and its elements in a natural resources sector, no matter how much technology, automation, and AI is being implemented. Learning how to improve human performance and minimize human errors is most likely one of the more challenging aspects of a tailings facility risk management program, needing increased attention.
